“So we’ll be doing this a lot then?” asked Daniel as we walked through the Viridian forest.

I pushed aside a branch that had started to grow over the path. “Yup! We’re out here because the routes leading to the city are something that should be checked and maintained as part of the gym charter. Walking them for any strange or unnatural behaviour is something we need to be doing. This is in conjunction with the Rangers. We work with them and help link things together with our jurisdiction,” I said from memory.

I’d had to teach this to most of the people that I took on as trainers for the gym. I didn’t sigh but I wanted to. Daniel was merely the latest in the line of trainers that didn’t like having to patrol the routes. He most likely didn’t enjoy being away from the gym, or more specifically his wife I suspected.

“Scyther!” cried my bug pokemon who was more than happy to be out and in his element.

I watched him dart around through the trees like a ninja, his shape blurring and reappearing on different tree branches. I whistled and signalled for him to return. He vanished and returned to me in a show of speed.

“Scyther!” he brandished his blades grin firmly attached to his face.

I gave him a rub on his head. “Enjoying this bud? You’re doing well with your speed drills. I’ve got some balls I want you to keep in the air while staying within ten metres of us. Think you can do that?”

He nodded enthusiastically. I’d lucked out with his personality, as he was an enthusiastic and very upbeat pokemon. This made it a lot easier with motivating him to be a ‘great warrior’ like his ancestors before him. That had him puffing up in pride.

Daniel and Missy watched him dart around.

“The training brace sure seems to be working on him,” Missy said as she watched Scyther work at his drills.

“Yeah, shame he’s going to wear it out so quickly. I’ll be able to get him strong but if I want to keep him there I’m going to have to keep him training pretty hard.”

“Shame,” said Daniel. When I raised an eyebrow he continued. “You won’t be able to keep his training up when the circuit starts. He’s a nice vanity pokemon.”

“Eh, I need a pokemon like him that I can dabble with. Either way, he helps to give me more insight into how some of the local pokemon trainers do things with their bug pokemon. He certainly grows in response to the training I give him a lot faster than most of the pokemon I’ve trained in the past. It also adds a new challenge cause he can take on bad habits faster than others. Bug trainers need to be rather well thought out in their training plan. They also need to have great eyes for detail.” I rubbed my chin. “It’s interesting stuff and exploring it has made me revisit a lot of what I have my other pokemon do.”

Missy nodded slowly. “Huh, I’d never thought of how that would impact a bug specialist. Interesting!” Missy glanced around. “If you don’t mind Brock could I catch a caterpie today?”

I gestured for her to go right ahead. “By all means.” The sound of voices approaching had me whistle and draw Scyther back to my side. Soon enough a trio of young boys emerged. Each of them had bug nets over their shoulders and the eldest had a trio of pokeballs.

The younger kids held a pokeball each in their hands, holding it like a prize they feared would slip from their grasp if they weren’t careful. I raised a hand.

“Hello there!” I said waving in greeting.

The boys’ eyes looked to me and bulged only for Scyther to step up and wave a blade in greeting and their eyes to snap to him. “Is that a scyther!?” they cried out as one.

Daniel snorted. “And the prize for the gifted goes to…” Missy coughed and shot him a look to behave but I ignored them.

“Hey kids, out to catch your starter pokemon?” I said drawing them back to me. They blinked and blushed when they realised they’d been staring. The eldest boy bowed his head, then realised he was alone in bowing. He rose, grabbed both of what looked like his younger brothers and dragged them both into a bow.

“Gym Leader Brock! We’re sorry for staring sir!” as he did so his hat flopped off his head revealing ginger hair a similar shade to that of Celia.

“Hey, hey no need for that guys,” I said, waving them off. They slowly straightened up, eyeing me carefully. “As you noticed, I’m Brock and this is Missy and Daniel,” I said pointing at both as I introduced them “What’re your names?”

“Mason!” “Blaire!” “Ron!” they said over the top of each other. The elder knocked both his brothers’ heads and coughed. “I’m Blaire and these are my younger brothers Mason and Ron. They’re going to try and do the circuit this year with me. I’ve already caught three pokemon and if we go together we’ll have a better chance,” he said only to wilt.

“That is… we would but the Beedril swarm has moved further north than usual… I don’t want to hurt my pokemon by making them fight so many Beedril. I’d try for deeper into the forest, but again my starter is the only one that could handle it and it’s too risky with all three of us… So we’re heading home for today.”

I nodded. “Hmmm, that’s a good call. I’ll need to check in on the swarm to make sure they’re not too large, but we’ll probably be turning west to skirt around them for a bit of a check today before heading home. Want to come with us?”

The boys all perked up at that, their eyes sliding to Scyther as they nodded quickly.

I chuckled as they joined us. I kept Scyther close enough to let them fan over him and how cool he was as he traced their steps back up the route. As we did so I probed Blaire. “So how come you’re out here and not one of your…” I didn’t parent but Blaire understood what I meant.

“Mum works full time. She’s been saving up enough to get us these pokeballs for today. But I’m the one with three pokemon so I’m taking my brothers out to catch something.”

“Ah, nice work then.” I didn’t ask after their father. That was something of a faux pas in this world. Sometimes people just left. For good or bad reasons.

Soon enough we came upon the Beedrill swarm and I whistled in appreciation.

“Hmmm, looks like a lot of them are going to be migrating soon.” A glance up saw a number of circling Pidgeotto and Pidgeot along with some Fearow. “Not sure how many will make it with the birds waiting for them but another swarm might form up if they make it.” I wrote a quick message to the Rangers and shot it off. “Couple more days and things will calm down.”

I gestured to the west. “Let’s skirt west for a bit. I doubt they’ll go that way cause of the sea and the Silver range, but they might be feeling tough enough for it if they don’t listen to the older beedrill.”

“Older beedrill?” asked Blaire. “I thought most Beedrill only lived a few years?”

I pointed towards a particularly scarred Beedrill near the centre. “See that one? Those scars are from an Ursaring paw. If they have those they went west. That or there’s an Ursaring that’s moved east.”

The boys all shifted at that but I waved it off. “Most of them prefer caves and mountains so it shouldn’t be an issue. It’s more likely that Beedril went to them than the other way around.”

I glanced over Ron and Mason. “What sort of pokemon were you boys looking to get?”

“Heracross!” “Pinsir!” they said together.

I chuckled, “Or a Scyther?”

They nodded and Scyther puffed himself up. “What about Pineco, Spinarak or Venonat?”

“You can find those around here?” asked Daniel in surprise. I glanced at him and found him paying much more attention. It seemed he wasn’t immune to ‘cooler’ bug types.

“They can be found throughout the forests of Kanto with special methods. You’d probably have better odds at night for Venonat or Spinarak but you could find them still. Otherwise checking trees for pineco would be possible.” I caught a sweet smell and redirected us towards the smell. “One of which you can find by being clever, come on!”

I led them deeper into the woods and found a tree with leaves that were a deeper red compared to the evergreens that typically made up Viridian forest. I pointed right at it. “Scyther, fury cutter on the tree to scar the bark.”

Scyther exploded forward and slashed the tree with speedy strikes. When he hopped away he did so with a pleased expression that he’d suitably marked the tree. I looked at Missy. “Can you mark this as a waypoint to return to for us on your pokenav? I can navigate us in and out of the forest but finding a specific tree is a bit of a tall task.”

Missy did that and I waved the group on, much to their confusion.

We continued to trudge through the forest but perhaps with there being so many of us and Scyther being rather loud in his training, we didn’t encounter any pokemon the boys were interested in. When we reached a small clearing with a shrine in the middle I called a halt for an early lunch.

The boys approached the shrine tentatively. “What is this? I’ve spent a lot of time in the Viridian forest and have never seen this shrine before?” said Blaire.

I chuckled. “Technically we’re on the western outskirts of Viridian right now. We’re fairly close to route twenty-three. We’ll soon come into some plains and cliff faces. This is an old site for the guardian of the forest. There are plenty of sites like this that are said to honour the guardian. I know they’re more prolific in Johto, but you can still encounter them if you spend enough time roaming the forests.”

“Who’s the guardian of the forest?” asked the boys.

I smiled. “Who can say,” I said whimsically. Then I thought about it some more and decided to make this a little more memorable for them. The pokemon world was all about mystery and wonder after all. “Perhaps it was a strong Shiftry, or a Venusaur, or even something small and friendly like Bellosom, but know what I think?” I said. The boys shook their heads practically hanging off my words. “I think it might have been a Legendary pokemon.”

The boys all inhaled and I thought I heard something from Missy and Daniel as they too got caught up in the story.

“Which pokemon is that?” whispered Mason, as though afraid I’d not tell them.

I smiled faintly and looked into the branches of the swaying trees. “They say it's called Celebi, a pokemon that makes trees and grass flourish wherever it goes. It has the ability to fly and is thought to be a psychic grass type pokemon.” I let the group inspect the small little shrine for a while longer before opening a pocket on my backpack. “Make sure you leave something sweet for it alright?”

The boys all nodded and deposited a candy that they unwrapped. I deposited a part of my doughnut — an actual doughnut mind you— and even Missy and Daniel joined in. Then we bowed as a group to the shrine.

A wind blew through the clearing as a quiet held between us. Nothing strange or mystical happened however and we finished our lunch after that and began to track back the way we came. The boys all seemed a bit more thoughtful. I smiled and glanced back… but I didn’t see anything.

I sighed. A pity, for all that I didn’t really expect a pokemon known to inhabit Ilex forest I thought… maybe… just possibly…I glanced around hoping to see it. When nothing came I shrugged it off. Oh well.

We continued our poor showing and the boys, while disappointed, didn’t seem to mind much as instead of catching pokemon they spent time with scyther. I traded some pointers with Blaire over how to train bug pokemon and was interested in how he strengthened up his Butterfree’s gust without tearing the pokemon’s much more delicate wings.

“Push ups with the wings are a good idea,” I said, complimenting the young boy. He blushed and rubbed his nose.

“Thanks, it was just something I thought of trying after our teacher got annoyed with us in P.E and made us do jump push-ups.”

I nodded along. Missy checked her pokenav, “Should be just over this hill boys.”

I nodded and crouched down. “Alright gang from here on out we’re going to go slow and quiet so as to not spook any of the pokemon off.”

Daniel and Missy nodded while the boys grinned as I made a hand seal like I was playing ninja. Scyther flapped his wings in a quick vibration and then whispered his name adopting the game of ninja happily. Then as one, we all slunk forward to spy the tree I’d had Scyther slash up.

Around it, a number of pokemon were clustered. Some sat up in the branches and others jumped up from the ground, all of them ignored each other so they could focus on licking the leaking tree sap. I could see Pidgey chirping at Spinarak in the branches while a Mankey nudged other pokemon aside. Caterpie and Weedle hung onto the side of the trunk. On the ground a pair of Pichu hopped up and licked the tree one after the other.

“What the?” Missy said quietly. She looked at me. “What did you do?”

I pointed at the tree. “That’s a maple, trees like that in forests can be drilled into and the sap is extremely sweet. It draws in pokemon like now.” I gestured for the boys to step up.

“Well boys? What pokemon are you going to catch?”

The boys both pointed straight at the Pichu. I waved them onward. As they crawled forward I tapped Blaire and pointed in one direction. “Missy and I will go to the right, you go left with Daniel to stop them if they get away from the boys.”

He nodded and plucked a pokeball with a determined expression on his face. “Got it!”

In the end, we needn’t have bothered as both boys tossed their pokeballs and both caught the pichus. The other pokemon startled and broke away but we let them escape.

Mason and Ron danced happily with their pokeballs held high. ““We did it! We did it!””

We spent some time congratulating them. Before we left I collected some sap into a container as a treat for my scyther and other pokemon. Titan would enjoy it if I made it into a giant thick taffy syrup for him to enjoy. He’d have gunked up teeth for hours afterwards but he loved the taste of sweet things enough that he’d been one of the first pokemon I’d taken off childminding due to the kids being able to bribe him.

The boys were a bundle of energy the entire way back to Pewter and they announced a thousand and one plans to make their pokemon the strongest of all Pikachu or Raichu ever. I gave them a few suggestions. They thought my idea of giving their pokemon lots of pancakes was a laugh, but agreed that it would be appropriate with how they’d used something sweet to catch their pokemon.

I just smiled. Chances were it wouldn’t change anything, but perhaps the old joke might hold just the smallest grain of truth? I had no doubt I’d hear about it in the future if my ‘joke’ resulted in big news of a new Pikachu evolution.

When we parted ways with the boys I knew I had new converts to the fan club that I’d heard of in Pewter for the gym. They couldn’t bow low enough to me and ran into Pewter literally singing my praise still. I watched them go with a fond smile.

They’d been good kids.

When we reached Pewter I gave Daniel and Missy a nod. “And that’s about as good a day trip for the local routes as you can get. Think you can do the same for future trips? You’ll be doing them alone of course but what we did with checking the route and the pokemon population is the main job. Sometimes helping out young trainers as well.”

Missy nodded and bounced back and forth. “It felt nice to do that! I never knew you could attract pokemon using tree sap before either!”

I made a so-so gesture “It’s not usually as effective as it was today but with winter coming to an end there were bound to be some hungry pokemon around. You’ll notice we didn’t stop and camp around there as well. We made the slashes and then left straight away. Wild pokemon can get skittish if you stick around but when you let them gorge themselves on something sweet like that they’re easier to catch.”

“That’s interesting,” said Daniel rubbing his chin. Then he looked over to Missy. “Weren’t you going to catch a caterpie?”

Missy blinked before groaning. “Shoot! I got too caught up in helping the boys out! Urgh!” She shook her head and sighed “Oh well, I’ll have plenty of time.”

I nodded at her before waving them on. “Right, now I’ll show you how to write a report and file it. You’ll copy that report and send it to the Rangers as well so that they're kept in the loop.” The rest of the afternoon passed quickly from there with paperwork and scheduling.

I returned home and found my family bouncing around the lounge room. Cindy saw me and cheered. “Yay! Brock’s home!”

The rest joined her only for them to stand and begin twisting their hips through their hands. It was rather adorable to see them flossing. When I’d first taught them this it had been in an attempt to get them to look after their teeth and to wash properly with a towel. They’d loved the silly dance immediately. Since then I’d learnt that it’d become very popular throughout Pewter schoolyards. It was even cuter to see Billy and Tilly trying and failing to synchronise their hips with their hands.

They flubbed it horribly but they didn’t care. Eevee stared at us all and began to run through our feet barking her name as she did so. Her soft fur tickling legs caused a lot of my siblings to flub the floss. I joined them, a huge grin splitting my face.

Munchlax joined in and soon we were all giggling as he tried to throw his much too wide hips through his arms like the rest of us.

“Ready?” I said.

“Ready!” they chorussed back.

“Three, two, one! What time is it!?” I shouted to them.

““PIZZA TIME!”” they shouted, stopping their dance moves to throw their hands in the air.

Munchlax’s eyes bulged and he leapt with glee. He didn’t know how to floss but he obviously knew what Pizza meant.

I called up the Pizza company and got our usual orders. Twenty minutes later a huge Rapidash stormed up to the gym with a saddle laden with pizza. I collected our orders, gave the Rapidash a rub on the nose and settled in for the night.

A message on my transceiver from Sabrina had me glancing around. Hmmm she wanted to hang out? I could probably do that. “Hey, you guys okay with a friend coming around?”

I got a general murmur of agreement from everyone. They were more focussed on their pizza slices. I sent off a message, telling her it was pizza night and she was more than welcome to come over.

When Sabrina walked in she got mostly a disinterested greeting apart from Suzie who put her pizza down and waved her hands. “Hi! Hi! Sabrina!”

Sabrina perked up at that and gave a more subdued response, “Hello… Suzie,” she said carefully.

Yolanda stared at her only to then turn her gaze towards me.

I gave her a look in return. “What?”

She grinned at me. “Nothing~!” she said before scooching over so there was a space between her and myself. She looked to Sabrina only to find Suzie had already claimed the older girl.

“What do you do with your hair?” Suzie said as she tried to sit up like a big girl and have a proper conversation.

Sabrina smiled at her. “I wash it and brush it out. I also have a silk pillowcase.” Sabrina was more than happy to accommodate the younger girl with ‘big girl talk’.

“That is so interesting!” said Suzie. “Want… I mean” she coughed. “Would you care for some pizza?”

Yolanda put her hands to her mouth and giggled. I chuckled as I took a bite of my pizza. I shot Yolanda a look. She’d been rather obvious about making space next to me just now. Had Yolanda thought Sabrina and I were dating? It seemed that way. I tapped Yolanda on the shoulder.

“Hey, we’re not dating,” I said, trying to be clear with her.

Yolanda blinked, glancing from me to Sabrina. Then she gave me a smirk. “Suuuuuure you’re not.” She then took a big bite of pizza and made a show of obnoxiously eating it.

“We’re not!” I said truthfully.

Yolanda continued to chew on her pizza. “Uh-huh!” she said loudly.

I huffed at her and made a face as I chewed my own piece of pizza back at her.

“Urgh! Show a little deck rum!” said Suzie loudly at us from where she was having a ‘big girl’ dinner with Sabrina.

“Decorum,” corrected Sabrina gently before nodding in agreement with Suzie. She lifted her head to look down on us but I could see her lips twitching.

It seemed like she was enjoying herself with how the kids were more focused on their food than different things around us. I picked up the remote and instantly eyes turned upon me.

“Oh! A love story!” said Yolanda smugly. I flicked a piece of Salvadore’s pineapple pizza at her.

“Hey! Not my pineapple!” he said, dragging his pizza away from me.

Forrest shrunk into the couch. “Can’t believe we’re related.” Salvadore stuck out his tongue.

“Can we watch the Eevee and friends movie?” asked Cindy. Tilly agreed and I could see Suzie wanted to as well but she was watching Sabrina. Apparently, watching Eevee and friends the movie would seem too ‘little girl’ for her tastes right now.

Our Eevee chirped up and bounced in excitement which made Suzie’s desire to appear older obviously waver.

The boys groaned aloud. “Urgh! Can’t we watch Battlecast? They're going to have some good matches on replay!” said Forrest.

I rubbed my chin not really wanting to watch replays. “Hmmm, maybe next time.”

Forrest groaned and reached over the couch to grab some gameboys which he handed out to the other boys. I rolled my eyes at him and set up the girls with Eevee and friends. Eevee was rather cute to watch as she darted about the room mimicking the pokemon on the screen with their attacks or how they ran away from certain attacks.

When she eventually settled near Cindy she was close enough for Sabrina to reach over and stroke her fur.

I checked in with Sabrina. She seemed to not be having any issues unlike last time with Erika and Janine. But then again the kids were more relaxed this time around and she seemed to be handling it well. Yolanda caught me checking Sabrina over and shot me a smug, knowing look. I shot her a shake of the head which she ignored.

When the movie was done she watched me escort Sabrina out and I spotted Yolanda and Cindy, and Suzie watching us from a window as I said goodbye.

“Thanks for coming over to hang out… even if we didn’t really do that much.”

“No we didn’t, but I still enjoyed myself, “ Sabrina said before inclining her head. “Thank you for inviting me.”

When she didn’t say anything else I nodded. “Well good night,” I said in parting.

Sabrina returned the gesture and then vanished in a teleport. When I walked back in, Yolanda and Cindy both shook their heads at me.

“What?! We’re just friends!” I said, trying to correct their assumptions. Both of them just sniffed.

Suzie waved her hand. “Brock how did Sabrina vanish? Is she a ninja-like Janine? Only a better one?” The boys perked up at this.

I bit my lips to not laugh. If Janine heard that comparison she’d be mad. I coughed. “Uhm no, Sabrina’s a… she’s a psychic so she knows how to teleport.”

Suzie blinked. “Oh! Wow, so she’s really strong?”

I nodded “Yup! One of the strongest people I know!”

Suzie smiled and bounced to the bathroom at my urging. “I’m friends with her!” she sang.

Yolanda stared after us. “Wait? She can teleport?!”

I grinned, apparently, Yolanda had missed that little fact over her thoughts on our relationship. “Bedtime kids! I have some more work in the morning!” I said aloud.

Forrest glanced over at Yolanda who shifted back and forth as the rest of the kids moved upstairs. Yolanda shot Forrest a pleading look after everyone else was gone.

Forrest grumbled before straightening up. “So, uhm I have to come clean about something…” he started.

I stopped cleaning the room and straightened. “Oh?” I said, expectations lurching to the forefront. Were he and his friends the ones spray painting parts of Pewter? Forrest suddenly looked much more nervous and I realised I wasn’t being ‘open’ like the parenting book suggested. I coughed, “Sorry, I meant, alright, I’m listening?” I sat down and leaned onto my hands and laced my fingers to show I was listening and being neutral as much as possible instead of standing and possibly looming.

Forrest swallowed. “Right well… I’ve been riding my bike around and trying to… uhm… run into Dad lately?”

I blinked in surprise. “Oh,” I said, feeling everything suddenly jerk under me. “What made you…” I rethought what I was going to say here. “Did you get to talk to him?”

Yolanda and Forrest shared a look before shaking their heads. I relaxed a little and then wondered why I was relaxing. “Alright… so do you want me to talk to him?”

Yolanda shifted back and forth. “Well it’s… just that!” she bit her lip. “We had seen him around and we thought maybe we’d talk to him.” She raised her hands when I turned to look at her. “But we only decided to do that over the last couple of days!”

“Okay, that’s…” What was going on here? Did they think I was mad about them seeking out Flint? “I’m not mad.”

Yolanda searched my face and relaxed. “Oh… I was worried you might have been cause… Well Dad did make you come back so early from your journey and you might still be mad at him and…”

I rubbed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. Suddenly I felt like I was on one side of a divorce with the kids asking to see the other parent… which was pretty much how things were.

“Alright, you wanted to see him. That’s fine. I've been mostly waiting for him to approach and talk but… well he hasn’t been doing that.” I felt that tickled my mind. Something about waiting being a bad thing… who had said that to me recently?

Yolanda looked away, her eyes glimmering with tears. “We noticed that as well.” I dismissed what I had been thinking to reach out and put a hand on her shoulder, staying low so she didn’t have to look up at me.

“Hey, hey, it’s alright. I… I get it. It’s fine. Honestly, it's good that you decided to do something like this.” Right. Karen had mentioned my waiting being a possible issue. I hadn’t expected it to manifest this way however. Although with how Flint was also… hmmmm.

I was starting to get a sneaking suspicion that I wasn’t the only Rock aura user in the family. I had adopted a wait-and-see approach but the same could be said about Flint. He was known to have trained exclusively rock types for years before I was even on the scene. So it was technically possible if not highly probable.

Yolana nodded and sniffled to get herself under control as I continued to pat her shoulder.

Forrest coughed. “Well! Anyway, we ummm, have been looking for him, but lately, he hasn’t been around… You… didn’t happen to say anything to him did you?”

I blinked in surprise. Did they think I had spoken to him? “No?”

Forrest blinked back, just as surprised by my answer. “Oh? We thought you might have gotten angry with him and… chased him off… which now that I say it sounds dumb…”

I opened my mouth before reconsidering what I was going to say and how things might seem to them. “I’m not going to say I’m not mad with him, cause I am!” I said quickly. “He shouldn’t have run off like that again. Not with how things were. And a whole host of reasons but I haven’t spoken to him at all.”

I worked my jaw around before shaking my head. “The last time I saw him was…” The hospital trip with the twins… I’d been pretty annoyed then, hadn’t I?

Yolanda wiped her eyes and smiled at me. “Do you think you can just ask him to come home?”

I swallowed down the feelings that wanted to blurt themselves and smiled at her. “Sure, I can do that.”

“Sorry,” she said, ducking her head.

I rubbed the top of her head before planting a kiss on her forehead. “No, you don’t have to be. I’ll find him and we’ll talk.” I looked into her eyes. “I promise.”

Yolanda smiled and I felt myself relax. I looked over to Forrest to include him in the promise as well. “If you guys happen to see him first though then by all means. Talk to him and invite him back.”

Forrest sighed in relief. “Oh good, That’s good. Really good even…” I shot him a glance and he coughed. “We were worried you might reject him.”

I snorted. “You guys do know that the bedroom at the end of the hall closest to you is not just an empty guest room right?”

Yolanda beamed at me while Forrest made a slow face of realisation. I shook my head then deliberately rolled my eyes at him. When he rolled his back at me I ruffled his hair making him scowl and splutter. I rolled my eyes at him and signalled for them to come help out with the other kids.

I felt a weight lift. I had a course of action and now I just needed to find Flint and talk.

That shouldn’t be too hard right?